Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. Author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), The Unexplained (1996), Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), The Beasts That Hide From Man (2003), and more recently Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013), A Manifestation of Monsters (2015), Here's Nessie! (2016), and what is already considered to be his magnum opus, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016), his many fans have been badgering him to join the blogosphere for years. The CFZ Blog Network is proud to have finally persuaded him to do so.

Search This Blog

PLEASE COME IN, I'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU...

Thursday, 17 December 2015

FROM STAR WARS TO SMITHFIELD - THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MEDIEVAL YODA MONK

The Yoda lookalike figure from the Smithfield
Decretals (public domain)

The long-awaited latest Star Wars film – Episode
VII: The Force Awakens – was released this week, so it seems timely to
upload onto ShukerNature the following article of mine that I wrote a while
back after purchasing the book Medieval Monsters but never got around to
doing anything with, until now…

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away – or, more
precisely, in March 2015 on p. 5 of a then newly-published book entitled Medieval Monsters, written by medieval historian Damien Kempf and art historian Maria
L. Gilbert – an extraordinary illustration appeared that swiftly attracted
considerable media attention, spawning all manner of newspaper and online
articles during mid-April. The illustration in question was a figure from an
illuminated manuscript dating from the 14th Century – a figure reproduced
at the beginning of this ShukerNature blog article and which, as noted by those
numerous media articles, just so happened to bear a striking resemblance to
none other than Yoda, the venerable Jedi Grand Master from the Star Wars
movie franchise!

Yoda first appeared as a (relatively) sprightly
900-year-old in The Empire Strikes Back – produced by Lucasfilm Ltd,
released in 1980 and constituting the second film in the ongoing Star Wars
series. In contrast, his Middle Ages doppelgänger appeared over 600 years
earlier, in the Smithfield Decretals (a colloquial name deriving from
its earliest known provenance, the Augustinian priory of St Bartholomew's at
Smithfield, its official title being the Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa
ordinaria [i.e. commentary] of Bernard of Parma). This is a
parchment codex in Latin, which dates from c.1300-1340, and can be found in the
British Library listed as Royal MS 10 E IV (with the mystery figure appearing
on f. 30v). Written in southern France (probably Toulouse), the original manuscript arrived in London during the early 1300s where numerous marginal
illustrations were added. It was presented to the BritishMuseum in 1757 by King George II as part of the Old Royal Library.

The likeness of the strange entity in this early
historical manuscript to Yoda was not actually commented upon in Medieval
Monsters, but was highlighted by British Library curator Julian Harrison in his blog Medieval Manuscripts on 17 December 2015 (in a guest post on
this same blog for 14 April 2015, the authors of Medieval Monsters had briefly alluded
to it in a whimsical poem about their book's contents). Looking at this
enigmatic figure, there is unquestionably a similarity, from its monk-like
attire, and long ears sticking out at right angles from its head, to its spiky
hands, greenish skin, and facial expression. Consequently, once the various
media articles aired online, it was not long before fevered speculation arose
as to whether Yoda was indeed based upon the enigmatic image from the Smithfield
Decretals.

However, the designer of Yoda's distinctive
appearance, the late Stuart Freeborn (d. 2013), a British motion picture
make-up artist, always stated that the character's face was based upon his own,
and that his eyes were inspired by those of Einstein in order to give them a
wise but kindly look. Moreover, it seems highly unlikely to say the least that
back in the pre-internet years of the 1970s when he was creating Yoda's character,
Freeborn was even aware of this exceedingly obscure centuries-old French manuscript,
let alone had access to a copy of it.

So if not a prototype for Yoda, what exactly was
that medieval manuscript-featured monk with the big ears meant to represent? Some
articles erroneously claimed that this orange-robed figure appeared in a
retelling of the biblical story of Samson present within the Smithfield
Decretals, but in reality the latter manuscript is a collection of canon
law composed during the 13th Century that served as an addition to
the Decree of Gratian, the main collection of canon law composed during
the 12th Century. (Decretals are actually collections of papal
letters that compile decrees on church law.) Consequently, as postulated on the
Auckland Theology & Religious Studies blog, the Yoda impersonator
was quite possibly intended to represent the devil attired as a demonic doctor
of canon law, signifying that some clerics charged to uphold the law were
actually corrupt and exploitative of their flock. The only link, conversely, to
Samson is a series of illustrations concerning his life that run along the
bottom edge of certain folios of the Smithfield Decretals (including the
folio containing the Yoda image in the main text), but which have no connection
whatsoever with the subject of the main text.

A snail-cat, depicted in the Maastricht
Hours – an illuminated devotional manuscript produced in the Netherlands during the early 1300s (public
domain)

However, it is conceivable that this controversial
figure may have no religious significance at all, but was merely inserted as a
joke by one of the manuscript's illuminators. The creation of non-existent
entities by illuminators as sly subversive humour or merely to relieve the
tedium of the lengthy task at hand when copying or illustrating such
manuscripts is well known, and has even resulted in the recurrent appearance of
certain well-defined but entirely fictitious creatures, such as the snail-cat,
for instance, as documented by me in a previous ShukerNature article (click here).

Consequently, 'Yoda of the Smithfield Decretals'
may well be nothing more than a medieval doodle, whose similarity to the Star
Wars character is actually only a superficial one, but which has been blown
out of all proportion by the shared monk attire. During the 9 months since Medieval
Monsters was published, all manner of other explanations for the ostensible
correspondence between the two figures have been aired online, ranging from the
sober to the surreal. However, my personal favourite is one alleging that
perhaps a time traveller viewed a Star Wars film featuring Yoda, then
went back in time to the creation of the Smithfield Decretals and
somehow succeeded in surreptitiously including a depiction of Yoda within its
text.

As the late, great British broadcaster Robert
Robinson was wont to say when faced with 'imaginative' answers to questions:
"Ah, would that it were, would that it were".

1 comment:

Talking of Mediaeval Monsters you might enjoy this brief article by historian Caitlin Green on the place names of northern Lincolnshire inspired by various monstrous entities. http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/12/the-monstrous-landscape-of-medieval.html

SHUKERNATURE SURVIVAL

If you'd like to assist me in my ongoing crypto-investigations, even the smallest donation would be immensely appreciated. All donations are non-profit-making, going exclusively towards the updating/maintenance of my crypto-archives' source material and other necessities that enable me to continue researching and blogging my findings right here for you on ShukerNature. Thank you so much for your help! - Karl

ShukerNature Followers

Subscribe To

Contributors

DISCLAIMER

In Accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, any copyright material on display here is under Fair Use without any claim of ownership or any profit accrued by the display. The Material herein is for non-profit educational or criticism puposes only. Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 106 and 106a, the fair use of a copyrighted work including reproduction and distribution of said material as specified in that section, for purposes of education, news reporting, commentary or criticism, scholarship or research, to persons who have expressed a prior interest in receiving such material for such purposes, is NOT an infringement. Also: Unless stated otherwise, all illustrations in ShukerNature blog articles that are credited to a named copyright owner plus Wikipedia have been made available by the copyright owner and Wikipedia for third-person use under the conditions of the Creative Commons Licence. Should any copyright holder of any of the illustrations included on ShukerNature not wish those illustrations to be included here, please contact me and I shall of course remove them.

ATTRIBUTION

All original content on this blog is the exclusive copyright of Dr Karl Shuker, with all rights reserved by him, and must NOT be reproduced in any manner without his strict permission in writing.